Monday, January 13, 2014

Yes, I invented this phrase, which surely does not need
translating, when reflecting about the romantic saga taking place in the Elysee
Palace, the French version of the White House.

For the record, my phrase is a variation on a line,
apparently first uttered by French revolutionary Georges Danton, and later adopted
by Napoleon and George Patton.

It is:

“L’audace,
l’audace, toujours l’audace.

Clearly, in matters of the heart and loins, matters in which
the French, as we know, are masters, France’s president, Francois Hollande is audacious.

Picture it. Every evening the president of France is perched
on the back seat of a motor bike, driven by a member of his security detail to
an assignation with his new lover, an actress named Juliet Gayet. If that was
not the perfect mixture of love and audacity the words have no meaning.

Obviously, the nation that gave us the Story of O is far more sophisticated in erotic matters than the
nation that gave us Hustler, n’est-ce
pas?

But, while it was revolutionary for a former French
president, Francois Mitterand to have fathered a child out of
wedlock, those who have a longer memory recall that American president Grover
Cleveland had already accomplished that very same task. Like Mitterand, Cleveland
was elected to the presidency twice.

As for the current president of France cohabiting with an
accomplished professional woman who is
not his wife, she being journalist Valerie Trierweiler, savvy observers note
that he is merely following in the footsteps of New York’s governor,
Andrew Cuomo, who has been shacking up with his girlfriend, namely Sandra Lee.

Aside from the complexities of defining such a role— First Lady
does not seem quite right— the French president’s love life has never really
bothered anyone. France has much bigger problems these days. No one much cared that President Hollande did
not bother to marry his previous paramour, Segolene Royale, who bore him his
four children.

Good leftist that he is— and there is no better leftist than
a French socialist— President Hollande strongly favors the feminist agenda.
Apparently, he believes that marriage is a patriarchal institution designed to
oppress women. He has done his part by refusing to insult and demean woman by
marrying them.

The French are so sophisticated about these matters that the
affair—whose exposure caused the president to take serious offense and to
threaten to sue— will have little or no political impact.

Explain that to Mme Trierweiler.

One needs to point out that Trierweiler began her affair
with Hollande while he was happily cohabiting with Segolene Royale… and while
she was still married. By taking up with Trierweiler, Hollande was replacing an
older woman with a younger woman.

Now he is replacing Trierweiler with the younger actress
Gayet, To the untrained eye it appears that President Hollande is repeating
himself. When his girlfriends reach a certain age he trades them in for a younger model.

Like I said, the French are masters of the art of love.

By all appearances, good feminist Hollande cares about more
than his lovers’ minds.

The sad part of the story, the only part that merits some psycho attention, is that Valerie Trierweiler, upon hearing that her inamorato’s
affair had been splashed across the tabloid press, promptly had a nervous
breakdown. She has been hospitalized for observation and rest.

One must accept— there’s no reason not to— that Trierweiler
knew of the affair before it hit the tabloids. If your live-in lover was not
spending the night in your bed you would probably notice. And you have to
accept that she was at least willing to look away from her lover’s diversion.

For Valerie Trierweiler, fully liberated and sexually
sophisticated, the ultimate horror was the humiliation… the fact that her
private life had become public knowledge.

Apparently, the sense of shame is not so easily discarded. When it hits those who pretend to have overcome it, it hits them hard.

Sadly, we now learn that the French public blames Trierweiler.
They never liked her anyway and never really cottoned to her being treated like
the First Lady of France. Recent reports suggest that they believe that she was
faking a nervous breakdown to manipulate Hollande into keeping her on as
sort-of first lady.

Faking it… what was all that feminism good for if women still
have to fake it? Does the French public believe that Trierweiler was being
histrionic? It’s all so difficult to fathom.

4 comments:

What can I say, but that I am so bummed for her, and by the rotten attitude of the French as you reported it. Those callous French. I guess that's why they are called Frogs, for jumping from bed to bed.

I find the French endlessly fascinating. You could say I'm a Francophile. It's a source of frustration I've been too lazy to learn the language (altho I use phrases promiscuously). Rosetta Stone perhaps?

Louis XIV's younger brother was flamingly gay (can I say that?), with a like-minded entourage at court. He managed tho to have children, one a distinguished General.

Josephine had so many lovers (barely escaping the guillotine), she needed a Rolodex. When randy, Napoleon maintained a Waiting Room of naked nubile ladies (naked to guard against assassination attempts). Also perhaps, for efficiency.

When WW 1 started, they couldn't find Gen. Petain. He was at a hideaway w/his current lover.

In latest Vanity Fair, long article about tiny French lady (88 lbs) in her 80s. Wife of the late Alain Robbe Grillet, who introduced her to rather scary S/M. She lives in chateau w/female companion, & is now a celebrated Domina, with socially prominent acolytes of both sexes. Incredibly elaborate S/M rituals.

In A.Huxley's "The Devils of Loudoun", the French fascination w/clysters (enemas) is explored. In a Moliere play, a character offers to give a lady a clyster.

The novel "Gigi" is a rather creepy account of a wealthy Frenchman adopting young girl, w/plans to make her his mistress when she gets older.

Yeah, Rich, that was my take on Gigi. Supposedly a really good, maybe great, well-known movie that I only saw after my children grew up (and, I think it was 6-11 years ago); I was appalled that the message I was getting was that the best thing this girl could aspire to was being some man's mistress.